There is a lot you can do with your own site, but you have to produce enough images to make it interesting. Only the top players in the industry have the quality, image volume and income stream to do this.

Yes, the rest of us could never figure it out. Whatever you do don't click on mine or other poster's signatures. 

I should have added to do it with high income. i was thinking of a site where you invest in your own worldwide advertising, place ads, work with sales people, add new software tools for customers  etc...

Obviously anyone can sell from their own site, but to attract thousands of buyers you will need the volume.

Of course, you are welcome to share the secrets of your million dollar a month business ;-)

I'm trying a kinder gentler me, but sometimes the smart @$$ still sneaks out.   Anyway, I'd say it's relative. Increasing my revenue x% a month by opening my own site is a lot different than someone like Yuri increasing his by the same x%. My goal wasn't to make a multi-million dollar operation anyway. It was to actually get paid for all the work I've already put into my stock library. Something more sustainable than having to create thousands of images a year just to maintain the same income. Besides, my stock site is better than Yuri's because it actually exists.  

Yuri will take contributors to his site, no doubt about it. He may not plan to initially, but he'll soon see the benefit.

The timing of his commitment to the project is depressing, however. I believe it confirms Yuri's agreement with what many of us have feared about the future of iStock.

Quote from: lthn on June 16, 2011, 07:08

maybe lobo will apply in the near future for a job as forum moderator  : )

And Peebert could come back from retirement to do public relations.

LOL. Yes.  A definite recipe for success.

guys you are all thinking too much, he isn�t going to open an agency or such.. he is creating the most awesome blog to share, to post videos, to get us occupied while he is shooting 3000 frames per day 

seriously that�s what he is planning to do and I can�t wait to hear from all that bombastic lights and glitter

Yuri will save us all from stockruptcy, only exclusives at IS will be ignored (ok one or two will do it, his hometown guys)

Can I have some of whatever you're smoking?

Why do you think that this would affect istock?

In the end this will just be another microstocksite and at least for now the content is not exclusive or in any way special to what the other agencies have. istock also has the added benefit of the Getty umbrella to move content around.

It will take years to draw in the buyers and create a solid plattform, if he wants to do more than just sell his own content.

If Flickr started a stocksite...that would worry me. But with Yuri I see no danger for istock. Maybe for the smaller agencies that depend heavily on his content.

Still, it will be very interesting to see what he does.

Until it's launched, none of us have a clue how this could affect the other sites.  If it's just another microstock site or a site just to sell his own images, it's not going to have a huge impact but there's always the possibility that he has come up with something a bit different.

I'm sure if someone comes up with a better option for buying and selling microstock images, there will be a big impact on the current sites.  Yuri is a smart business person who probably knows more about microstock than all of us here, so I wouldn't be too surprised if he came up with something special.

Yuri will take contributors to his site, no doubt about it. He may not plan to initially, but he'll soon see the benefit.

The timing of his commitment to the project is depressing, however. I believe it confirms Yuri's agreement with what many of us have feared about the future of iStock.

I suspect he would not. I would say he will prefer contracting photographer's to wok for him on assignement and retaining copyright of their works.

On the other hand, when you contract la cr�me de la cr�me of developpers, analysts, etc, you'll never have a 100% benefit, you have to pay a lot in wages, promotion etc.

He's already trying to promote it: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329282&messageid=6410874

Hmmm.... using iStock's forums to promote a rival. No doubt he'll be booted off iStock once Lobo notices the post...

It looks to me from that comment that Yuri's site is just going to be for his portfolio.  I presume it would be a bit risky to announce that he's working on a rival site in the istock forum but they aren't going to mind so much if it's just for his portfolio?

They won't mind him direct selling his own work but if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out. So will Dreamstime and Shutterstock, for good business reasons.

I see no logic whatsoever in that. It's just another agency he's selling images at. And obviously he's not exclusive (no grounds to throw him out, not that they really need them). And why would they want to loose millions (IS at least)? Illogical from every angle you look at it.

Quote from: Slovenian on June 17, 2011, 09:45

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on June 17, 2011, 09:30

They won't mind him direct selling his own work but if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out. So will Dreamstime and Shutterstock, for good business reasons.

I see no logic whatsoever in that. It's just another agency he's selling images at. And obviously he's not exclusive (no grounds to throw him out, not that they really need them). And why would they want to loose millions (IS at least)? Illogical from every angle you look at it.

It's perfectly logical.  Why would you want to be funding the same guy whose goal is to take away your customers?

funding?? : O They are making money on his work, taking most of the sale value. Taking away customers? He's already got files (and a lot-lot more files) on sale cheaper elsewhere than IS f.e. Does he want to make the most money with his shots? Yep. Would he want buyers to go to the palce where he gets the most money for his shots? Yep. Did competing sites advertize themselves with his shots already? Yes. Did all of that ever get the buyers to go to just one certain place? Nope.

You seemed to miss the part about "if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out" in the statement, which implies drawing in other contributors to directly compete and take business from existing agencies.

Re. Sean Locke's comment...

Yes, selling his own work is one thing but trying to set up a full-scale agency is something else altogether.

A new Yuri Arcurs agency that was having to meet all its costs itself would probably struggle to survive and, if it did, would take many years to become a major threat to the others. However, if he was being paid a million bucks a year by his rivals that money could subsidise rapid development of the new agency. making it a threat to the main players much more quickly.

It's basic common sense for the established sites to stop funding him if he tries to challenge their business model.

I think people also wildly over-estimate Yuri's importance to the agencies. If he pulled out of iStock tomorrow I'd bet that 90% of his sales would simply transfer to other black diamonds/diamonds. Isn't he just shooting the same stuff as most of the rest of them?